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Verb patterns

November 2, 2012 -

English sentences follow a certain pattern. There are several sentence patterns in English. You don’t have to learn all of them, but you should be familiar with the most important ones. The best thing about sentence patterns is that you can create thousands of sentences using just a few patterns.

Subject + transitive verb + direct object

A transitive verb is one that takes an object. The normal order of words in an English sentence is subject + verb + object.

Subject

Transitive verb

Direct object

He

likes

children.

The teacher

punished

the boy.

The protestors

invaded

the platform.

The scoundrels

were given

a good thrashing.

The monk

burnt

himself.

The government

should ban

all militant organizations.

The object is a noun or a noun equivalent. It is the answer to the question ‘whom?’ or ‘what?’.

He likes whom? – children

The teacher punished whom? – the boy

The protestors invaded what? – the platform

The scoundrels were given what? – a good thrashing

Some verbs are not normally followed by objects. These are called intransitive verbs. Examples are: sit, sleep.

Although intransitive verbs cannot take objects, they can be modified by adverbs.

Please sit down.

The baby was sleeping on the bed.

He sat under the tree.

Subject + verb + object + adverb particle

Some verbs are followed by adverb participles. Examples are: put on, take off, give away, bring up, call in etc. Sometimes the adverb particle is separated from the verb and put after the object.

Subject

Verb

Object

Adverb particle

He

put

his coat

on.

They

called

the doctor

in.

The boy

threw

the ball

away.

His grandmother

brought

him

up.

You

must send

them

back.

The adverb particle goes after the object, when the object is a personal pronoun, or when it is comparatively short.